This Just Hit Me…

Sparkler. Image courtesy Microsoft.

I’m not the smartest guy in the world. Many times, in fact, I’m pretty dense.

Ask my wife.

Sometimes though, I do have surprising moments of clarity. I don’t know if you are like this, but every once in a while, particularly after some reflection or some period of daydreaming or deep thought, my brain cries, “Eureka!”. Something clicks, a light goes on, and for that fleeting moment in time, I grasp some concept or life-lesson or truth and view it with a clarity and precision that had previously escaped me. Actually, I find that much of my spiritual development happens in these moments. Maybe you are like that. Maybe you aren’t. That’s the way it works for me.

It’s kind of like a spark, actually. That idea or realization will burn very brightly for a short time. But if I want to develop it, grow from it, nurture it – let it really impact my life, I have to get it out of my head and placed somewhere else. In order for that spark to be fanned to flame, there has to be an intermediary channel – some kind of tinder – that will allow the spark to smolder slowly at first, and then develop into a small flame that will continue to burn long enough for me to put it to the firewood. I have to be able to see the idea in front of me and interact with it long enough to let the reflection upon the idea impact me and compel me to action. Sometimes that means writing it down. Sometimes it means engaging a close friend in conversation about it. Sometimes it means dropping everything and praying about it right then and there. The point is, if I don’t get that spark to tinder, the spark that had the potential to be a bonfire dies a death of inactivity and is reduced to a puff of smoke.

For that reason, I wanted to start a new blog post series entitled, “This Just Hit Me.” I haven’t written a good blog post in several months now (Sorry!) and I shudder to think how many of those sparks have gone up in smoke during that time. The idea is not for it to be a time-limited series with regularly-scheduled entries, but rather for it to be an ongoing series with its entries being the product of my reflecting on these sparks as they occur naturally to me. The first of these will be an entry on the difference between modesty and humility. Stay tuned.

I’m sure I won’t get to all the sparks. But hopefully I will save a few. And hopefully, they will be fanned to flame. And hopefully, dear Reader, you will be able to warm yourself by the heat.

Why Christians Who Share My Views On Alcohol Often Drive Me Nuts

A glass of port wine. Public domain image.

Recent years have seen renewed acceptance of alcohol consumption among evangelicals generally, and among Southern Baptists particularly. Just a few decades ago, teetotalism was the norm in evangelical circles, but now it seems the tide is shifting. If discussions I have had with several of my peers can accurately serve as any indication, the up-and-coming generation of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will prove with time to diverge significantly from the traditional, recently resolved Southern Baptist position on the issue.

During my seminary career at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, students were required to sign a “Covenant Agreement Form” which outlined several points of requirement for conduct by which enrolled students were expected to abide. This form is still given to incoming students to sign and everyone is required to sign it before they are allowed to enroll for classes. Number six on the list of items is a wholesale prohibition on consumption of alcohol by any student, along with accompanying prohibitions on tobacco and illegal drugs. Every year, Danny Akin, the school’s president, would hold an open forum chapel service where he would field questions submitted by the student body. Every year, one of the questions he answered would be, “Why the prohibition on alcohol?” And every year, it seemed, he reassured us that this year was going to be the last year he would answer the question.

Grief, The Gospel, And The God Of Happy Valley (Repost With Update)

Joe Paterno. Public domain image.

UPDATE: The following post was originally posted on my last (now deleted) blog, coramdeolife.blogspot.com. It was originally posted on November 11th of 2011 in response to facts that had come to light upon the release of the Sandusky grand jury presentment. Since that time, Sandusky has been convicted of 45 criminal counts, Joe Paterno has passed away, his statue has been removed, administrative officials allegedly involved in the cover-up have been fired, and the NCAA has laid down some of the most stringent punitive measures in it’s history against Penn State. Additionally, it has just come to light that there are new investigations being led by the Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Attorney Office regarding an alleged child-porn distribution ring involving Sandusky and others. Insofar as the post indicates that my wife and I were considering church planting in State College, God’s movement in our lives in the following months led to us to investigate a calling to the city of Philadelphia and we are pursuing the opportunity to plant there at the current time. 

Sadly, many loyal fans still seem angry at the media and those involved in the investigation (i.e. independent investigator Lewis Freeh and others) for the demise of their football program, the tarnished reputation of their beloved coach, and the negative public perception currently plaguing the university. For these reasons and because of the renewed interest in the scandal sure to come about due to newly publicized investigations, I thought it suitable to republish this article. At the root of things, nothing since its writing has really changed. People worship persons. People worship themselves. People worship things around them. They don’t often worship God. Here’s to helping us all do just that:

“God Hates Shrimp”: Why One Of The Most Common LGBT Arguments Against Scripture Doesn’t Pass Muster (Updated)

Image courtesy godhatesshrimp.com. Used with permission.

Last week saw the gay marriage debate in America reach a fever-pitch. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that at the center of this controversy was Chick-fil-A, one of the nation’s most popular chicken restaurants, and one with a history of making corporate policy consistent with its founder’s Evangelical views. The LGBT community and those in favor of gay marriage rights have banded together to boycott the company’s “Jesus chicken.” I’ll spare you the details because they are all but unavoidable on the internet and cable news channels and aren’t really my focus, anyway.

My focus is a particular biblical argument that I keep hearing in favor of gay marriage – and as yet, I haven’t seen many, if any, Christians engage it publicly. This is frankly pretty surprising to me. The appeal of the argument to those that use it, ostensibly, is that they are supposedly fighting scriptural fire with scriptural fire. However, the argument isn’t all that good and is fairly easy to refute.

Book Review: Ideas Have Consequences

As indicated in my first post, the blog’s first few posts will feature material which I have already written. This post was originally written as an assignment for a Christian Philosophy class. I posted it to Facebook as a note in April of 2011. Ideas Have Consequences was one of the most enjoyable books I read during my seminary career, and hopefully the review below will inspire readers of the blog to check out this classic work that was far ahead of its time.

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Image courtesy wikepedia.org

In his political-philosophical classic, Ideas Have Consequences, former University of Chicago English professor Richard M. Weaver seeks to diagnose the root cause of the social maladies which had arisen at the time of the book’s publishing directly following the Second World War.  In addition to proposing a diagnosis of the problems, he also posits a three-part corrective.  Weaver’s thesis may be ascertained from the outset of the book. Weaver’s thesis is “that the world is intelligible and that man is free and that those consequences we are now experiencing are the product not of biological or other necessity but of unintelligent choice” (p. 1). Accordingly, an idea foundational to Weaver’s line of argument is that “the denial of universals carries with it the denial of everything transcending experience” (p. 4). Such a denial, in Weaver’s estimation, leads inevitably to traceable and predictable societal degradation.